


We Won't Feel Fine

by Jade_Dragoness



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse, Community: cliche_bingo, M/M, Unhappy Ending, off screen character deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-20
Updated: 2009-09-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 17:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Dragoness/pseuds/Jade_Dragoness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were called to Earth by the Narada.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Won't Feel Fine

**Author's Note:**

> Another square for my cliche_bingo card! For the square #22: Apocafic - It’s the end of the world.

Jim ran along the corridor. Spock kept pace behind him. 

Barely. The pieces of technology attached to his hip, to Spock’s leg to his side and to his face, slowed him down until it was a struggle for him to keep up with Jim. 

Jim didn’t dare spare a glance to check on him. There was too much danger around them. If they got caught again? It would be the end of everything. He couldn’t risk looking away from the open doors and alcoves that they were running past. Any of which could have held one of _them._

Even with a phaser pistol in one hand and a phaser rifle slung to his back and both phasers set to kill, Jim felt naked. It wasn’t enough firepower for him to feel comfortable. He never knew when the Borg would adjust to the phaser settings and he’d already used all the grenades and overloaded his other phaser to set Spock free.

He was grimly certain that even if they did succeeded in their mission they wouldn’t have enough firepower to get out. The only edge they had was the knife he had in his boot. 

“Where?” asked Jim, panting for air as they came to shaft. He flickered a glance around and pressed his back to the wall to keep his phaser pointed down the hall one way, then the other. He constantly kept shifting his gaze around before he spared a moment to look down the shaft. It was completely black. Jim swore, knelt down because Spock could not - at least not comfortably - and felt around for the rungs. He felt a flare of triumph at the cold metal under his fingers. 

“Three more levels down,” answered Spock, his voice a rasp. The green glow around his throat threw a sickly light against his pale skin. 

“How much time do we have left?” asked Jim, as he slug himself into dark shaft. His feet skidded under him. His stomach dropped and panic made his eyes widen. 

Spock quickly grabbed him. Holding him tight by the arm. His metal fingers dug tightly, and painfully into Jim’s skin. 

Jim bit his lip to keep from crying out. 

“Thanks, Spock,” said Jim, as he got his feet into the right place on the rung. He looked into Spock’s face for the first time in a while and felt that same flare of despair at the sight of dark metal covering half his face. His right eye replaced by an artificial bulbous sensor. 

Jim swallowed down the feeling. “We have to hurry.”

“Agreed,” said Spock, roughly. “I am finding it more and more difficult to hold back the programming.”

“Damn it,” whispered Jim. If he lost Spock… he’d already lost everyone else. “We need to hurry,” he repeated. 

Jim practically slid down the rungs, he climbed down them so swiftly. Spock followed behind him. His metal feet making a loud clang ring up and down the shaft. 

The noise, and reminder of what it represented made Jim move faster. They reached their goal in about ten minutes. 

Jim popped his head out to see if there anything around and swallowed a sigh of relief when the hallway was clear. The main chamber was right in front of them. Only there was a large door in their way. The exposed circuitry along the door and panels gave it an unsettling organic look.

“Can you open it?” asked Jim, quietly. 

“Yes,” said Spock. And pressed his changed arm into a port in the door. Spock’s eyes closed and the light at this throat brightened. 

The door swung open with a faint hiss. 

Jim moved first. The phaser pointed at every corner. 

“It‘s clear, Spock.”

Spock didn’t respond. 

“Spock!” yelled Jim.

Spock didn’t move. Jim pointed the phaser at him and swallowed hard. 

_Please, please. Don’t make me do this,_ he silently begged.

“Spock,” said Jim softly. “Pull yourself back. Don‘t listen to their song. I need you. Come back. Please.”

Spock’s entire body shuddered and his eyes opened with difficulty. 

The brown of them still shone with individuality and Jim nearly sobbed at the sight of them clear and intelligent with everything that made up Spock.

“Jim,” whispered Spock. “I am not lost to them.”

Jim dropped the phaser to his side and grabbed the back of Spock’s neck to pull him toward him. Fiercely, Jim kissed him. Not caring about the metal that bit into his cheek or the lingering taste of it in Spock’s hot mouth.

He pulled back enough to rest his forehead against Spock’s. 

“No,” Jim agreed. “I still have you.”

Spock gently kissed him back. Lightly enough so that the metal in his body didn’t hurt Jim. 

“We have less than twenty minutes and twenty-three seconds left,” Spock reminded him. “We need to upload the virus now. Or they will get off the Earth and to the rest of the Federation.”

“Let‘s move,” said Jim, pressing one last kiss to Spock’s mouth before he pulled himself away. Even taking the time for such an indulgence had been a risk but he needed it like he needed the air to breathe.

As they moved deeper and deeper into the Borg Queen chambers, Jim thought bitterly that even if they managed to succeeded it was too late for the planet Earth. Too many of its people were converted into Borg, too many people were lost to its song. Their individuality wiped from their minds like their brains had been computer drives needing to be formatted for new software. For Borg software. 

And even more terribly, the Borg now knew that humanity and all of the people of the Federation were here and vulnerable to their attack. Even if Jim and Spock succeeded in uploading the virus, and destroyed the Borg. They would return. 

So, Nero had managed to destroy the Federation after all. 

It was the Narada’s stolen Borg technology that had called out to the Borg in this time and had led them straight to the Alpha Quadrant and to the last planet the Narada had touched. 

The Earth. 

And the Earth had fallen until only Mars had the only unconverted humans left in the Sol system. This attack, launched by the last of the Starfleet officers that survived, was the last chance those humans had to get a respite to recover because they were barely holding out against the attacks. Already, the numbers had dwindled to less than ten percent of the original survivors. More died or were converted into Borg, every hour of every day. The Borg didn’t tire and never stopped until they were made to stop.

“We are at the location, Jim,” said Spock, interrupting Jim’s thoughts. 

Jim nodded. “Be fast, Spock. She‘s going to notice as soon as the virus beings to be uploaded.”

Spock nodded and walked stiffly to pulsing computers. He pulled off the datapad, easily twice the size of a regular PADD.

It had been created by the Vulcan survivors, headed by the Spock from the future alternate reality. He’d had the knowledge of the Borg that had given them the edge to last as long as they’d had. And now, they had the means to help destroy the Borg in the Alpha quadrant. 

Jim just wished that they could have reached all the Borg all at once. But even such a thing had not been possible over a hundred years into that future that could have been with technology that he couldn’t even begin to image. 

So, all they had now was this desperate attempt which had nearly failed when the Borg Queen had captured Spock. 

Jim had never wanted to kill another sentient being more in his life. Not even Nero had sparked such a deep well of rage when he’d seen what she was doing to Spock. Even after he managed to hurt her enough that he’d been able to free Spock from her grasp that anger lingered like a ache because Jim had nearly been too late to save him.

Jim stiffened as the green and red lights that had littered the room of the computer went dark.

“Did you truly think that you would be able to succeed?”

Jim spun and shot his phaser. And hit nothing but air.

The Borg Queen’s low smug laugh made Jim grit his teeth as he moved to get behind cover. 

“Spock!” he yelled. 

Spock was still moving. His fingers, even the changed ones, moved swiftly over the terminal. 

“He‘s mine,” crooned the Queen. “Soon, he can only ignore the song for so long.”

“He won‘t,” denied Jim, hating himself for responding but unable to resist denying her words. 

Spock was still ignoring them, intent on finishing on the mission. He’d managed to hook up his metallic arm into the port pouring power from his implants until the computer banks glowed with life.

The Queen hissed in anger and moved towards Spock in a deadly slithering movement.

Jim shot her but missed as she quickly moved out of the way behind a thick cluster of dangling electronics and black cables. 

She gestured and a wall opened up revealing two Borg. Both were human or at least were once human.

Jim instantly shifted his aim and fired. 

He hit one of the Borg in the chest, the red blast sent him staggering back before dropping to the floor. Dead. The other Borg didn’t hesitate and walked to Spock. Jim snarled and fired again, but the second shot only diffused harmlessly against the Borg’s chest by the energy field. He kept coming.

Jim swore, dropped the phaser and pulled a long knife from his leg strap. He ran forward and jerked to a stop as a cable dropped from the ceiling and around his throat, yanking him up into midair. 

He choked and kicked and managed to hit the Borg behind Spock. He made enough noise struggling for air to warn him. Jim managed to get a hand up to the cable and pulled him up until the cable loosed enough for him to breathe.

Below him, Spock used his free hand to hold off the attack, refusing to move from the terminal. He kicked at the Borg’s knee, hard enough to produce a loud crack of breaking bone and the Borg staggered.

The Queen descended like a spider from her hiding spot put a dead flesh cold hand on Jim’s face. Jim did the only thing he could do, and stuck his knife straight into her neck. 

She screamed shrilly and the control she had over the cable loosened enough so that Jim dropped to the floor. 

Him didn’t even pause to gasp for air but spun and jumped up. He plunged the knife straight into the Queen’s skull. 

She twitched and stilled. 

Jim dropped back to the floor and gasped for air. 

“Spock,” gasped Jim. His own voice was now disturbingly harsh. Too much like Spock’s voice. 

“I am alright, Jim,” answered Spock, his voice hoarser than before. 

“The Borg?” 

“It is deceased. The Queen?”

“The same, until she shows up again in another body,” said Jim, grimly. 

The Queen was never truly killed as long as her collective lived. She just transferred her consciousness to another body, to another part of the Borg collective through the hive mind. But at the very least Jim’s attack bought them time.

“I‘m down to just the phaser rifle,” said Jim, shifting the rifle from his back to his arm. “And the knife.”

“The upload of the virus is at 55.34 percent,” said Spock. 

“What the estimate until it‘s done?”

“Three minutes and 3.445 seconds,” answered Spock. “And ten minutes and 43.23 seconds until the Borg launch their new ships.”

“You finish it, I‘ll keep an eye out,” said Jim as resumed his place as guard. He looked in every location, including blank walls and the ceiling for any hint of the returned Queen.

The minutes ticked by slowly.

“It is done,” said Spock, satisfaction giving his voice a dark tone. “The virus is completely uploaded into the neural transceiver and should spread across the planet and affect all the Borg in five minutes.”

“Good,” said Jim. “Lets go.”

The lingering lights, flickered then dimmed. Silence sounded as the far off hum of engines cut off. Everything stopped. Them lights went dark until the only glow was the green at Spock’s neck.

“Was that suppose to happen?” asked Jim, frowning. The only thing affected should have been the collective, not the engines. Anyway, it had only been about thirty seconds. Nothing should have happened yet.

As if in answer, the thrum of the engines began again but the lights stayed dark. 

“Spock?” asked Jim, taking a step to where Spock was standing. The green light didn’t move. Spock was completely still. “Hey, what is it?”

He stepped closer but then froze as Spock silently moved towards him. The only sound he made was the metal clang of his foot against the floor.

“Spock?” Jim tried again, dread rising up in his gut and making him feel cold.

The only answer he received was a metallic hand on his throat. Jim choked and convulsively tightened his hand on the knife.

“Resistance,” said Spock, his voice emotionally flatter than it had ever been before.

Jim moaned in despair. _No, only a couple more minutes._

“-is futile.”

End

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: *peeks through fingers* Um, it‘s probably a good sign that my own story scared the hell out of me. I think. *gulps* Damn.


End file.
